The Nude in Czech Photography)
A monograph tracing the principal art movements, figures and works in Czech nude photography, from the daguerreotype all the way to the present. The book was published by KANT in collaboration with UPM as an accompaniment to an exhibition of the same name, hosted in Prague Castle‘s Imperial Stables from Dec. 1, 2000 through Feb. 4, 2001.Czech Fashion 1940–1970: Mirror of the Times)
Volume Four of the Czech Fashion edition
Richly illustrated with examples of clothing from UPM’s collections and photos from period journals and other historical sources, this book is devoted to the period from 1940–1970, when fashion in Czechoslovakia evolved under the impact of two totalitarian regimes – Nazism and Communism. Although the war-period clothing style drew on the previous period when Czech fashion and haute couture flourished, it was strongly limited by the war events. The brief period between 1945 and 1948 was characterized by a rapid return to the pre-war standards of dress and fashion; however, this process was forcibly halted in 1948. The newly-installed Communist regime saw clothing as a very important tool for its ideological struggle. In collaboration with the other “People’s Democracies”, a fashion was to be designed that would reflect the “New Man and Woman” and would be independent of the so-called international fashion. It was only in the second half of the 1950s that ideological pressure was gradually relaxed, which in turn re-introduced world fashion into the country in the 1960s.
Irrespective of these limiting factors, exclusive fashions were designed and created in Czechoslovakia. This trend was owed to designers, superb cutters, tailors and dressmakers, who had received their specialized training and practice before World War II. Garments produced by the Oděvní tvorba clothing company and in the design workshops of Textilní tvorba (the precursor of the Institute of Interior and Clothing Design in Prague, ÚBOK) were officially presented at domestic and especially foreign shows as achievements of Czechoslovakia’s textile industry.
The publication was issued by the OLYMPIA publishing house in cooperation with the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague to accompany the exhibition held in the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, December 2000 – February 2001.Biedermeier: The Art and Culture in the Central Europe 1815-1848)
Biedermeier: Arte E Cultura Nella Mitteleuropa 1815–1848
Art et culture dans L'empire austro-hongrois, 1815-1848
In May 2000, a representative overview of the Biedermeier style in art was hosted at the Palazzo della Ragione in Padua, Italy. This was the first comprehensive exhibition to present the distinctive aesthetic movement and life style of the first half of the 19th century through artefacts from Bohemian and Moravian art collections. The exhibition was prepared by UPM in conjunction with the National Gallery in Prague and Comune di Padova. In collaboration with the Skira publishing company in Milan, the museum issued an accompanying Italian-English-French catalogue. The superb originality, quality and craftsmanship of Central European artists and manufacturers are documented in more than 300 reproductions of objects from the collections of the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, the National Gallery in Prague and other prominent Czech art institutions. The book covers painting, drawing and graphic art, the art of furniture-making, jewellery, glass and ceramics, miniatures and daguerreotypes.Treasures of Egypt: Textiles from the Czech and Moravian Collections)
The way people dressed in Antiquity, what kinds of fabrics they wore, what were the techniques they used, and how they decorated their clothes – all this is documented in the superb collection of Coptic textiles preserved in the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, and other Czech and Moravian collections. The bulk of these historical textiles dates from the 3rd to the 12th century A.D. The book contains a selection of Egyptian textiles that are currently the only comprehensive testimony to textile production in ancient times, the technical prowess of textile makers and the artistic execution of textile patterns. Most of all, these artefacts provide evidence of the clothing culture in Late Antiquity and early Christianity in the former Roman Empire, in the broader context of Greco-Roman cultural traditions.
The publication was issued to accompany the exhibition held under the auspices of UNESCO at the Prague Castle, April – August, 2000.